


I'd save you over and over again

by merrylarry



Series: 99 problems, and they're all their own faults [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Concerned Tony, Crime Fighting, Guilty Peter, Hurt Stephen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 09:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrylarry/pseuds/merrylarry
Summary: While fighting an acid spitting monster, Stephen makes a sacrifice for the one that he loves.





	I'd save you over and over again

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest story in this series, and I'm genuinely quite proud of it!
> 
> Again, as always, my tumblr is @god-doesnt-talk-to-us feel free to send me any prompts, ideas, or even just gush about ironstrange!

It all happened within the span of a moment.

Though Stephen had become a  master of time of sorts, even he couldn’t have slowed that moment down. It was in a moment of self-sacrifice, which wasn’t something that he was all that familiar with. But, some people are worth taking a hit for.

This moment was one of many during a day that Stephen had only faint memories of.

It was a typical day in the life of someone who associated with Tony Stark - multiple threats toward the city, the tower, and the man who seemed to run the world. This threat had been no different. It started a few blocks from the Stark Tower, around noon.

“Stephen, want to help out on this one? It’ll take less than an hour to control then you can do your magic to clean up,” Tony said as his suit quickly climbed onto his body on its own accord.

Stephen sighed as he placed the book he had been reading next to him. “Sure, why not. It’ll be nice to stretch the legs a little.”

“That’s the spirit!” This time Tony’s voice was playing directly into Stephen’s earpiece - one that Tony had insisted he wear if he was going to fight. As the pair made their way toward the destruction, Tony, from the corner of his eye, noticed a familiar swinging shape.

“Peter, shouldn’t you be in school today?” Tony asked.

“Shouldn’t you be in a nursing home yet?” Peter retorted. Stephen suppressed a laugh and Tony gave him a look. When the trio arrived on the scene, it was much worse than Tony had realized. None of them could identify what they were fighting was, just that it wasn’t from Earth.

“Hey! Big bag monster man! Over here!” Peter yelled as he swung his way closer toward the monster. The creature turned its green head to look at Peter, who had positioned himself on the side of an office building.

The creature flew toward Peter and began spraying a clear liquid aimed at Peter. Luckily, Peter was able to escape the attack, but the building behind him hadn’t been so lucky. Peter swung back to where Tony and Stephen were still located.

They all watched as the building that Peter had just been in front of was now quickly disintegrating into black liquid, and seemed to be eroding away. “So, acid? Really?” Stephen asked.

“I have to admit, these guys are getting creative,” Tony said. “Peter, try to distract him and Stephen and I will figure something out.”

“Got it, Mr. Stark,”  Peter replied.

Once Peter had the creature adequately distracted, Tony and Stephen had their plan together. Tony would try to shoot him down, and if that didn’t work, he’d try to blow him into green chunks. And well, if that didn’t work, there was always the option of Stephen sending it to some random planet in space.

Tony flew high above the creature and began shooting at it, but as soon as a shot would land, the wound, no matter the size, would heal itself within a matter of seconds. Once the monster realized it was being attacked from behind, it turned its focus from a small red spider to a certain flying hunk of metal, but not without shooting yet another wave of acid at Peter.

Tony watched as Peter, who was prematurely celebrating his small victory, stayed in the same spot, apparently not seeing the attack being made toward him. Both Tony and Stephen reacted in time to save Peter from the acid.

“Peter, go home, this guy’s too dangerous for you to be here. We’ve got it from here,” Tony said. Though, as Tony spoke, another blast of acid was sent their way, but this time Tony wasn’t nearly as observant as he had been for Peter.

“Tony!” Stephen yelled as he quickly opened a portal into the tower that Tony and Peter fell into before the acid could get them. Stephen, however, wasn’t as lucky.

Stephen couldn’t remember anything past that moment. That one, defining moment.

It wasn’t until he woke up a day or two later that he realized the extent of his injuries. His face was burnt, his chest the same, and his entire body seeming to be on fire. Stephen’s screaming brought Tony into the private hospital room along with a few nurses.

“Stephen, it’s okay. It’s okay. Just let them give you some more pain medicine, okay?” Tony assured him. Stephen groaned in pain in response and took deep breath after deep breath as they injected some liquid into the IV in his much less burnt right arm.

Stephen’s breaths began to even out and the pain began to subside minimally. The nurses left, but not before telling the pair of men to call the nurses station if they needed anything.

“Hey, just breathe. Just breathe for me, okay?” Stephen’s breathing returned to normal, and the pain became background noise.

“How,” Stephen breathed, “How bad is it?”

“Chemical burns on about 60% of your body, including the left side of your face and the entirety of the left side of your body.”

“Did you at least kill the bastard?”

“Had to have some extra help, but we got him,” Tony replied.

Stephen, at some point in their conversation, began to really feel the effects of the medication, because he fell asleep not long after Tony offered to bring him food. When he woke up again, his team of doctors came to talk to him and give him a detailed run-down of his injuries.

The acid burns were bad, but wouldn’t kill him. They would, however, leave scars.

Stephen wasn’t new to scars. They had become an old friend, just like the pain had.

He’d stay in the hospital for a few weeks before being discharged to outpatient physical and also emotional therapy. The latter wasn’t of his own choice, in fact Tony had been the one to suggest it. It was nice to know that Tony cared, it truly meant a lot.

As Stephen laid in his hospital bed, he couldn’t see himself ever leaving. He obviously couldn’t go back to being a damn superhero - at least not for quite some time. Moving his left side brought the pain back, and moving his left side was inevitable due to the act of breathing.

Tony would come back to the hospital after he’d already visited earlier in the day. He watched Stephen sleep, because that seemed to be the only time he was at peace and wasn’t in pain.

Though, Stephen wasn’t the only superhero in the city who was in pain.

Peter may have escaped any real physical pain, but he hadn’t been able to hide from the psychological pain that came with Stephen’s injuries. In his head, it was all his fault that Stephen got hurt in the first place. He should have never been at the fight, and if he hadn’t been at the fight, Mr. Stark would have never been distracted by him, and Stephen would have never needed to jump in between him and the monster.

For some, a moment is just a moment. For others, a moment is when life changes forever.


End file.
